Google the question: “Which is the best Medical Aid in South Africa?” You will find that the answer varies. Some researchers use complaints via Hellopeter.com and the Council for Medical Schemes as a measure. Others use customer satisfaction indices to get an answer. No matter what research method employed, the outcome is never consistent.
The reason? The question is not worded properly! A better question to ask is “Which is the best Medical Aid in South Africa for me and/or my family?” The medical needs of each individual and their family are unique. The following factors have a marked influence on the medical aid scheme/company and plan that you chose:
- Your Age
- Health status (chronic disease)
- Marital status
- Job status and job type
- Lifestyle
- Affordability
- Age of your kids
- Planning to have kids?
- Where do you live?
- Ability to save money
Due to the specificity of these factors and their uniqueness, the recommended way to find the most suitable scheme and plan that matches your needs is to consult with an independent medical aid adviser found at Virtual Adviser. Needless to say, the scheme and plan type will vary as you move through different phases of your life. We helped thousands of people make the correct choice.
“John is single was recently retrenched. He is paying R1400 for this Smart Plan medical aid with Discovery. He now needs to minimise his costs. We found a medical aid plan for him that costs less than R450!”
Great, but why are you excluding the extrinsic factors?
Factors such as customer complaints, customer satisfaction, the ability and/or willingness of a scheme to pay for treatment, the schemes relationship with health providers, values and ethics of the provider, etc. are also important factors to consider.
We will discuss them briefly.
Did you know? Long Covid affects more than a third of Covid-19 victims, months after contracting the disease. The symptoms vary from rashes, to slight mental debilitation and partial loss of functionality of one’s limbs. Scientists are still trying to understand Long Covid.
The best way to access private health care during the time of a pandemic is via medical aid. Virtual Adviser can help you re-organise your budget and make funds available for medical aid.
Contact us now for help.
– Team at Virtual Adviser
Why complaints of other users is a poor way of choosing a medical aid?
For most South Africans, medical aid premiums make up 20% of the after tax income of the principal member. It is a love-hate relationship – it is too expensive but not having it places them at risk of being treated at a poorly operated and ill-equipped state facility.
(Note: we have covered the 15 Myths about Medical Aid last year, I recommend that you read it.)
Research shows that medical aid complaints are due to lack of understanding of the benefits that a specific plan provides, and does not provide. This goes straight back to the financial planner’s quality of advice. Even if great advice was provided, the client probably could not afford the recommended plan and chose one that did not satisfy their identified needs.
Younger and healthier people want the cheapest option and keep it primarily to mitigate against medical emergencies. Older and unhealthier members want to extract the most benefit from relatively expensive plans. They obviously use medical aids the most and naturally tend to complain the most. Using complaints as a measure to decide on your medical aid option thus becomes fraught with errors.
Do not read social media reviews, do not read biased research articles, turn a deaf ear to complaints and forget hello peter. Rather contact our experts to help you: [email protected]
– Team at Virtual Adviser
What are the other factors worth considering?
When you buy a product, you buy into a brand. If the brand is great at marketing itself and holds a dominant market share, then its battle is won. People “join the movement” and buy the brand because everyone else in their social circle has joined. This is how herd mentality works.
This is the position that Discovery in South Africa enjoys. Discovery has approximately 1.4 million active members, the runner ups are Bonitas and Momentum – with less than a third of active members compared to Discovery.
However, Discovery does not allow for customisation of plans, like Momentum does. It does not matter if you have chronic disease or not, chronic disease is priced into your plan. It does not matter if you want or even need a savings account or not, it is priced into your plan.
Then there is a real scourge haunting, not on the member side but on the health practitioner side. Large schemes bully health providers. Read this article in Mail and Guardian, entitled “Discovery gets up doctor’s noses.”
Another rather disconcerting scandal involves racial profiling of Black, Indian and Coloured doctors. GEMS, Medscheme and Discovery are implicated in a hard hitting investigation by the Council for Medical Schemes (CMS) that spanned a few years.
The decision of which provider now becomes embroiled in principle. Its not just about buying a service any more, but its about investing in a brand and that brand needs to be aligned with our values and principles.
If pushed to choose, who would we recommend?
We would look at the above factors, intrinsic and extrinsic, and then look for the following in a provider:
- Greatest value for money.
- Allows us to personalise a medical aid plan to meet our specific needs, that pays the health practitioner with least resistance, is compassionate and looks for a reason to pay for claims, as opposed to looking for reasons to not pay claims.
- Is a level 1 BBBEE certified (just like us at Virtual Adviser).
- Has an option for students and the unemployed.
- Offers affordable gap cover across all its plans, not just the expensive ones.
- Has a rehabilitation benefit, a step down facility (if you are well enough not to be at hospital but not well enough to go home: equipped with doctors, nurses and ventilators too) and a hospice.
- Incentivises good health and gives flexibility to use cashbacks for health savings.
- Lets you decide how much should go towards a savings account.
- Has the best maternity package.
- Does business quietly without marketing itself aggressively.
- Has enough funds and is willing to settle claims quickly.
- Advanced systems allow you to decide which plan is best suited to you and allows you to sign onto its plans using technology, without the assistance of a human adviser. Thereby, protecting us during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Want to know who our recommended medical scheme is? Need advice on which medical aid to choose? Send us a WhatsApp message or email us.